After being soaked through with rain, and after giving it a day to dry, I learned that my mouse no longer worked.

It was a USB device no longer recognized. I thought it only fitting to bury it at sea.

Thankfully, I put the ceremony off until a later date. One more day of drying found it recognized and ready for service.

Having thought it lost — its value to me now etched deep in my heart — I immediately (well, within three days) put it to use in the construction of those pictures featuring various portions of that imaginary train station.

A trip to Brisbane entails buying passage on a bus. This bus deposits you at a train station, at which, conveniently, you purchase passage on a train.

I did so, and made my way to the loading bay to await the train that would be arriving in approximately fifty minutes.

There was a bench, on which I sat. Being ever practical, that bench faced the track on which the train I was to catch would eventually tread. I would see it coming. I would be prepared.

Behind said bench, was a vending machine. Having had nothing to drink nor eat, I placed $2.80 in that particular machine, and ever so politely requested a bottle of water.

The machine returned to me 60 cents, but in its greed would not release even a single bottle of water for my consumption. In time, I think it knew, I would thank it. For I see now my mistake.

In my hubris I requested water instead of coke.

As I returned in defeat from the vending machine to the bench, I noticed something troubling. There was a spider crawling with alarming speed up the front of my shirt toward my rakishly unbuttoned collar. I, being myself, refusing to touch it but was determined to dislodge it — to thwart its sinister goal — found myself in a battle of wits against a spider the size of a Canadian two-dollar coin.

It was a worthy opponent, but I emerged victorious. At least, I hope I did. I couldn’t find it, you see. It disappeared from my shirt, but neglected to re-appear on the ground or even the bench.

My only thought is that it must have donned a certain cloak it won from a certain boy-wizard with poor eye-sight and a disfigured visage in a high-stakes poker match.

Spiders hunger for one thing more than any other, and that friends is victory. I knew it would be back, and would not allow it to take me by surprise again. Forty-five minutes later, I boarded the train to Brisbane.

Brisbane. There are buildings there, as I’m sure you would expect. Many of these buildings, though, are home to bushy plants large in size and quantity. It is an interesting sight, and not altogether unpleasant, especially when intermixed with buildings of a more ancient and elaborate architecture – complete with gargoyles glaring downward. They judge the people that walk below, and they judge them harshly, for that is their way. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The train and I went our seperate ways in Southbank. For reasons unwritable, I was not able to explore Southbank as much as I would have liked and instead made my way over Brisbane’s muddy river by way of a pedestrian bridge. It was an interesting looking apparatus.

Over the river, through the university’s campus, and past the botanical gardens, I found myself at the Queen Street mall. It is called that for two reasons: There is a street (Queen street) that allows for no vehicular traffic and has shops on either side.

I fear I may have miscounted.

Ahh, but Queen Street mall was not sufficient for reasons similar to those I evaded above. Another bus, and I found myself at Carisdale mall. I could be wrong about the name, and probably am. In truth, I cannot remember what it was called.

In terms of traveling to the mall, it was a waste, as I bought nothing.

Brisbane, however, seemed cool and I would like to explore it further.

As the clock struck 12 (well, as the microwave displayed 00:04), I went for a run in the rain and oh, the things I saw. I saw strange nocturnal birds, after which I conveniently came across a sign describing them (which is how i learned that they were nocturnal). I saw an oddly translucent crab, which I initially mistook for a spider. I saw a bag that wraps a six-pack of beer bottles, making its way slowly down the sidewalk. Ingeniously, it was using the wind to propel itself.

My run itself was fraught with peril. I found my path continually blocked by spider webs, and was forced to choose alternate routes with alarming frequency. Thankfully, my vision is finely tuned to catch the elongated glimmer of their webbing in even minimal light. This comes, I imagine, from a combination of being taller than average and having an extreme distaste for spiders.

On returning, I intended to make some dinner. When opening the cupboard, for this very reason, a bug promptly fell into one of the bowls. It started at about the height of my head, and when I opened the door I can only imagine that I removed from it its floor.

It careened downward, accelerating with a fury proportional to 9.8 metres per second squared.

When it hit the bowl, it did so on its back and it did so with an astounding crack. Well, less astounding and more audible, and really more of a clink than a crack. Anyway, without hesitation it regained its footing, and proceeded to run in a ring about the bowl’s rim.

Many may have mistook its actions as the eccentricities of a disoriented insect, but I knew better: it was marking its territory, and its territory was my cookware. I lost my appetite.

In Sweden, I am told, rabbit is considered a type of vegetable.